Mongo-D “is not a celebrity cryptid like the Loch Ness Monster or Yeti,” Coleman told AOL News. It’s more of a second-tier creature, he said, “not like a unicorn or a centaur, but it’s very much a shadowy folklore creature.”

So why is the worm enjoying a sudden cultural renaissance among couch explorers?

“You could go to Lake Champlain and look for Champ, or you could go look for Bigfoot, but that’s not so exotic,” Coleman said. “These documentary film companies are looking to sell concepts and sell advertising.”

The fact that Genghis Khan Beer is plentiful and costs about $1.15 a large can, or 1,412 Mongolian togrog, probably doesn’t hurt either. Unlike, say, Burton and Speke’s nearly year-long Victorian-era expedition searching for the Nile’s source, reality docu-junkets last a couple of days — hardly time for serious scientific investigation.

Plus, Coleman says, “People are getting bored, and so they like different kinds of cryptids.”

About Loren ColemanLoren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.

The reporter failed to report the rest of what I told him about this. The label was placed there on purpose as one of the several little “quizzes” in the museum. So far, only a couple of young men have gotten it right.